On the Appendices Qenitales (Claspers) 



in the Greenland Shark, Somniosus microcephalus 



(Bl. Schn.), and other Selachians. 



By 



Hector F. E. Jungersen. 



Tlie following treatise has its origin from the circumstance that during the stay at Iceland of the 

 cruiser Ingolf I endeavoured to gather informations as to several facts concerning the Green- 

 land Shark, not yet elucidated. I succeeded only in throwing light upon a single one of these obsciire 

 facts by gathering a suitable material. At the subsequent examination of this material I soon perceived 

 that the appendices genitales or claspers of the Selachians generally had hitherto been very imperfectly 

 examined although these organs on account of their conspicuous — sometimes almost colossal — 

 dimensions have from time immemorial been known as characteristic for the males of cartilaginous 

 fishes. Of their functions onh' little is known with certainty, and on this point I am not able to bring 

 new facts of any importance; but though the function must be supposed to be the same in all Sela- 

 chians, a rich variation is found in their structure, especially in the skeleton, the structure being 

 different from genus to genus or even from species to species. That, however, through all this 

 variation a common type may be shown to exist, also with respect to the skeleton and the muscles, 

 has not hitherto been seen, but will, I hope, with sufficient clearness be shown by the following trea- 

 tise. As a consequence of the way, in which the work has come into existence, I have divided it 

 into two parts, of which one deals with the Greenland Shark only, while the other treats of other 

 Plagiostomes and Holocephales. 



I. 



The Appendages of the Ventrals in the Greenland Shark. 



The words with which Gunnerus^) commences his treatise of the Greenland Shark: This fish 

 of the Haaekind deserves to be somewhat better known to the learned than hitherto it has been» 

 may be said to some extent to be in force to this da\-, our knowledge of this species of sharks being 

 .still rather defective, although it is not only very frequently found in the northern seas, but is also 

 in ^-everal places the object of a large and regular fishen,-, as in our northern dependencies, espe- 

 cially off the coast of Iceland. It is so far less extraordinary, that man\- things with regard to 



") Om H aa-Skierdingen. Det Tliroiidhieuiske Selskabs .Skrifter. 2, 1763, p. 330. 

 The Ingolf-Expedition. II. 2. ^ 



